I think I felt the same way when I started, I didn't have any legendary mechs at that point, my best mechs were killshot, aegis, zephyr, sentinel, orion.. and i added guardian 

I used killshot with cryo luncher+ember guns or fragment guns, I used aegis with charge rockets, zephyr with ember guns or fragment guns or revokers when i got them later on.. orion was using EM rifle and guardian had reavers  

I would happily play my old setup hangar showdown against legendary mechs because I was doing it for a while, I probably got rusty now, after having legendaries and I would struggle now to go back and be more careful. Every game was a challenge I admit. And it was a great learning experience.

I still use aegis with exactly same setup, everything else changed and I admit I don't like to get allies without legendary mechs, especially with anything below epic.. I think it's a bit stupid, they are jumping their league by having some sort of pink rare mechs. They max out at about 100k health, while legendaries have 250k and so they are killed much easier. 

Im in 2nd league of hangar showdown, which one are you in? I heard that matchmaking is worse in 3-4 leagues. In 2nd league I'm mostly happy with matchmaking, especally now once im full of legendary mechs.

It's that way across the board, terrible matchmaking. I get what you're saying though, with only four players at a time, you'd think it would be easy to pair them easier with opponents of similar ranks, especially if you're new to the mode.

Matchmaking in HS is purely based on your league. Nothing else. This was stated by Plarium when the mode was released. On top of that they reworked the league star (mech rank) ranges, so now in league 3 people with only rare or epic mechs can be put against a squad full of rank 4 legendary mechs. And in league 2 a squad of mostly rank 4 mechs and a couple of rank 5 mechs can be matched against 4 purple mechs and a spare 3-star mech (which depending on what it is can still be strong).

I've only played the 2 matches since I opened it up. Both times the mechs were higher ranking...one was a wartex I believe, way above anything I have in my inventory. 

I go against people double or more my SP all the time. Anybody assosiated with this game just doesn't understand math. And from what I have seen, so many players don't understand it, so it makes it easier for the developers o get away with it. I just went against a person in HS, and their IP was almost double mine, and looking at the hangers they use, they were all over double mine. We have been asking for a fair and balanced game for years now, and they just don't know how to do it. Notice they do nothing to list SP in HS, it's so you don't notice how bad the matchmaking is. I'll go into a match where one of my mechs has double 10 weapons and the rest have a combo of 10s and 8s, and the opponent has a 16 and a 12 weapon. And all their mechs are equiped like that. I do win sometimes when you can tell it's all bought and they don't know how to understand, but most of the time it's a loss. More so when I get a teammate that only has 6s on their mechs.

Well there was a time for me when i would need 2 days to complete hangar showdown event and tick all boxes, but it could be more related to limit of 5 games and not to my skill or hangar change.. 

There are issues and one issue is bots.. i laugh sometimes when my bot gets something like stalker with pulse cannon 8 and the enemy bot gets legendary with overdrivers :) happened just yesterday.. come on at least give me a chance :)

It does happen that enemy gets two 16 weapons, so clearly a full star weapon.. so a stronger hangar than mine but they not always win.. idk.. i do 1000-2500 points and im happy.. it depends on lucky matchup or not.. but it can be sometimes less related to stringer enemy but rather poor matchup of mechs in specific rounds.. 

I still see that everyone is nearly equal in HS because everything gets maxed out. So i think hangar power matters less.